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As an American, I hear this all the time. "Get your hands off my healthcare." Doing some traveling and really reading into countries who have socialized medicine, it doesn't seem that bad. I'm not a socialist but I think if every other modern country in the world has a form of socialized medicine, why cant the US?

I realize that size and money are two huge factors, but is government run healthcare bad? Or is it just a scare tactic hear in America?

I don't think it should be government run - it should be mandatory, though.

Here in Germany there are different suppliers of legal healthcare that compete with each other. Everyone has to have health insurance by law; the costs are split (almost exactly) 50/50 between worker and employer. You can choose to opt out and go for more expensive private healthcare if your monthly earnings are above a certain level but that only affects a minority.

So everyone has healthcare but there's still competition in the market. I think it works just fine; and although I don't want to bash America in any way the stories I read of personal tragedies due to lack of personal funds don't seem to be fitting for a first world nation for me.

EDIT: I need to mention that the system in place here has flaws nontheless and is often criticised for being ineffective/wasting billions of money. So it's not like we live in some utopian paradise or anything.

The only way to not qualify for unemployment benefits in Germany is to quit out of your own free will without having another job ready. In that case your benefits will not be paid for the first three months of unemployment.

If you're fired (for whatever reasons), you're covered.

I'm no jurist, so some exceptions to these rules might be possible - however, they would be relevant only for a very small number of cases, I believe.

The problem is essentially that America is a system of "crony capitalism.". The government institutes policies that benefit political benefactors, such as insurance and pharmaceutical companies. [Disclaimer -- I work in the pharma industry.] Those industries would not benefit under a government-operated healthcare system, so the politicians that they buy do whatever they can to stop it.

Look at the Medicare Part D drug benefit enacted by president Bush -- it expressly prohibits Medicare from negotiating lower costs with pharma companies, something that all big insurance companies do. So it is basically an enormous taxpayer-funded handout to the drug companies.

Objectively, government-operated healthcare systems around the world provide better health outcomes than the US on literally dozens of quality measures (anything from infant mortality to overall life expectancy) for a fraction of what we spend.

Edit: And we actually do have a "government run healthcare system" in the US: the Veterans Affairs hospital system. It provides very good quality of care at lower per-patient cost than the conventional US health system, even though the veteran population tends to have a lot of difficult health issues.

American here myself, I don't think it's a bad idea, but America has a way of fucking up good ideas....imagine your local hospital being run like a DMV. Oh you're arms broken, TAKE A NUMBER AND SIT DOWN, oh you're heads chopped off, TAKE A NUMBER AND SIT DOWN, etc....on the flipside, insurance companies are like a ponzi scheme where you pay into something and when you do break your arm or you do almost get your head chopped off, well too bad your plan doesn't cover that. In other words, I have no fuckin clue how to fix it or what the answer will be.

I think it's just a scare tactic. New Zealand has a nationalised healthcare system and they're second to none on patient safety. There are many more examples of how a nationalised health system can work well

The US healthcare industry makes up about 17% of GDP_per_capita), which is the most in the world. Changing that might have major repercussions on your economy.

I do not want the government to decide that I cannot have a procedure, or surgery performed, which my Doctor and I feel is necessary. I also want the choice to decide for myself which Doctor I can use, or what hospital I can to go to.

Do you prefer your insurance company making the decision of what procedure to cover or not to cover? If we had universal healthcare you would not be limited to doctors or hospitals. Medicaid and medicare is accepted in a lot of places at this point its just a matter of extending those programs to envelop all of our citizens. The real issue here is that our health care system is based off of business and profits. Hospitals, insurance companies, clinics etc. are setup for profit and will literally do everything in their power to cut corners and make more money.

You can still get vanity procedures etc. as long as you pay for them, it just means that you don't have poor people suffering or dying unnecessarily while the rich get the best treatment. Hell, the rich can still go private, and often do for that luxury, top-of-the-range, manicure-while-you're-getting-your-tumour-removed treatment.

Living in Canada, we have government run health care and despite some funding issues as of late (because Harper cut taxes), it will cover any medically necessary procedure you need. You don't have to pay for heart surgery, getting your hip replaced, or casting a broken arm, BUT if you want cosmetic surgery to remove an unsightly mole, then you can foot that bill. That's not a tax payers problem.